Don't Get Mad, Get Even
by Kyilliki
Summary: Vladimir plots his long-overdue revenge, while Stefan just wants to be normal. Set during Breaking Dawn.


**Title:** Don't Get Mad, Get Even

**Fandom:** Twilight

**Characters:** Stefan, Vladimir

**Author's Note:** I really have no idea what this story is. It's a departure from my usual style, but I don't think it's quite insane enough to qualify as crack fic.

Also, it was written with massive amounts of input from Kyilliki's Younger Brother (c). We had fun. Perhaps you too will have fun reading it.

* * *

In an ancient, lightning-struck tower, somebody was drinking.

It wasn't alcohol, but given the look on Vladimir's face, it _should_ have been. He downed a glass of the viscous liquid, and then looked expectantly at Stefan.

"That was the last of it, I'm afraid," the dark-haired man shrugged.

"Damn it," he mumbled, followed by something that sounded suspiciously like _those Italian bastards_.

"You can't blame the Volturi for everything, Vlad. It's not as though Aro personally came and depleted our blood supplies." Stefan agreed with vicious revenge as a general idea, but he figured that after a millennium, it was time to let bygones be bygones. The Romanian ancients could move somewhere nice and sunny, re-decorate and find clothes not made in the fourteenth century…

Then maybe, just maybe, he could find a date. Stefan fervently wished he had a girlfriend, but Vladimir's alarming eye-twitch tended to scare away everything remotely female.

"Whose fault is it that we have to steal blood from hospitals? Who watches our every move, just waiting for us to slip up so they have an excuse to wipe us out once and for all?" Vladimir's eyes were black now, and his nails tore through the wood of the table, completely scratching out the elaborate _Aro Sucks_ that Stefan had carved during a long, dull afternoon.

"Um… well, actually, that's entirely your fault, brother," Stefan stuttered. "You're paranoid. The Volturi aren't going to come all the way here just because of a few unexplained deaths. How would they find out anyway? It's not as though any of them can use the Internet."

Vladimir considered this for a moment, then ploughed on undaunted. Somewhere between "It's only our right to hate them," and "I want to gouge their eyes out," Stefan stopped listening, because he had heard it all before in graphic detail. He crossed his eyes, but his friend did not notice. Then, he contemplated banging his head against a wall to drown out Vladimir, but it probably wouldn't help.

This is how he saw it: the Volturi were undefeatable. They had their perpetually smiling leader, the serial-arsonist who was second in command, and that other brother who took the term _living dead_ a little too literally. Oh, and the girl, who was cute as a button if only buttons could suddenly grin psychotically and unleash a world of pain. It didn't _sound_ all that threatening, but Stefan remembered a time when the Italian coven was so small that it had to do its own dirty work. They were deadly then. Now, revenge was only another word for death wish.

Vladimir was still ranting and Stefan was lost in thought; neither of them heard the patter of footsteps until a slender young woman with round red eyes was standing in front of them.

_Dammit, this always happens. Maybe if we got a dog, or at least a doorbell…_ Stefan mused.

"My name is Daria, from the Ukrainian coven," she whispered in hurried, imperfect Romanian. "Word is spreading through the East—the Volturi are on the move. All of them. Leaders, guards, wives. They're going to America. The accused ask for witnesses. My coven thought that you should know. They said you would want to fight." She paused, obviously trying to make sure that she had remembered everything, then quickly ran out again, fear evident on her features.

It was a pity that she had left in such a rush, Stefan decided. She really was rather cute.

The manic gleam had returned to Vladimir's eyes.

"_Perfect,"_ he hissed, as visions of gore and death danced in his head.

"No, no, a thousand times no, Vlad. We don't know why the Volturi are going—it could just be for a friendly visit. Maybe Aro got bored of his tower, Caius ran out of things to burn, and Marcus…well, maybe he just wanted some excitement." He was aiming for carelessly flippant, but the words just came out sounding desperate.

"Of course, Stef. Remind me, why are the wives and the entire guard coming, according to your theory?"

No response.

"Exactly! Now is the ideal time to exact the vengeance that has been owed to us for centuries! Finally, we can reveal those vultures for what they truly are! They will pay for razing our empire to the ground! There will be blood—"

"One tiny question, my friend: how exactly are we getting to America? We certainly don't have the money to pay for plane tickets, and I don't want to swim across an entire ocean…"

"Silence, fool!"

Well, the dark-haired man reasoned, there was nothing he could do. Vladimir was a bit of a drama queen at the best of times, but he wasn't about to let his best and only friend face the Volturi alone. Resigned, he trudged to his room and began packing an incongruously cheery polka-dot suitcase.

-

Lightning flashed and flickered through the growing thunderheads, illuminating the darkness and casting eerie shadows. Somewhere far in the distance, a lonely wolf howled and a screeching wind tore through the bare trees.

In a crumbling castle, an immortal was laughing as clumsily planned revenge awkwardly limped towards fruition.

For just one night, everything was well in Romania.

* * *

**Author's Note:** That's how (in my brother's and my opinion) the Romanians decided to join the Cullens and stand against the Volturi. I'm not sure how Stefan became the voice of reason, but it seemed better to have two completely different personalities trying to settle an old score.

Let us know what you think :).


End file.
